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The 'Get Imus' Mob Now Knows It Has Power Barry Farber The newsroom crowd says the Imus thing was last week. I wish they were right. I'm afraid the Imus thing goes from now clear through the foreseeable future of America. The most dangerous realization in the world is, "Well, whaddayah know. Look at all this power I never knew I had." When a baby realizes that, his parents become perpetual servants. When a young woman realizes that, a lot of young men are sentenced to sleepless nights and cold showers. When a bureaucrat realizes that, the public is in for much grovelling and delay. When a mob realizes that, civilizations die. And the mob finally realizes it can now take a media giant and dispatch him like a small ice cube under a big blowtorch. Nixon said of his enemies, "I gave them a sword." Imus gave them a rocket-propelled grenade with a smart aiming device.
The fact that Imus's remarks deserved severe censure and worse is both true and beside the point. I grew up in a media world where either the government could fire you (in all dictatorships) or the market could fire you (in democracies without state-run radio and TV). Welcome, now, to the new personnel director: the mob. History tells us the Danish king's guard in Copenhagen actually fired their pitiful little muskets at the invading German soldiers in April, 1940. The Germans must have laughed, just as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are laughing at the pitiful little potshots aimed at them due to the breathtaking inappropriateness of their leadership in the Imus-pogrom. Save those harmless bullets.
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Sure, Jesse Jackson called New York City "Hymietown." And, sure, Al Sharpton referred to "white interlopers" owning businesses in Harlem and "diamond merchants," meaning white store owners in Harlem who are Jewish. And Tawana Brawley and the fatal fire at Freddy's. Too little, too late. Jackson and Sharpton are at the forefront of an all-engulfing mob. Those who wondered why absolute dictators were called "totalitarians" can now understand. Notice the way the mob will settle for nothing less than its total agenda; all, here, now. What happened to all those reasoned voices that said, "Imus should get a two-week suspension," "Imus should get a one-month suspension," "Imus should pay ten thousand dollars into a Rutgers scholarship fund," "Imus should pay ten MILLION dollars to charities serving the black community," and then Imus should keep on broadcasting? Such drivel satisfies the mob about as much as a petite watercress salad would satisfy hungry linebackers. They demand the works; total obliteration of Don Imus on radio and television. Take him and his shows and drop them into sulphuric acid and spray the seething mulch out over Death Valley. The Coalition of the Chilling sprang up full-grown. We saw the head of the National Associaton of Black Journalists on all the news shows.
I'd never heard of the National Association of Black Journalists. (You'd all hear about me pretty quickly if I ever organized a "National Association of White Journalists.) Early in the week that saw Imus destroyed I was talking off the air to Sean Hannity along lines of the mob just beginning to feel its power. "They haven't even reached political puberty yet," I said. "Just wait!" By that I meant the mob was beginning to smell success and was celebrating with hi-fives and the like. By the next day they had their puberty popping. Instead of wasting time congratulating each other, they were methodically and professionally searching out and threatening those of Imus's sponsors who had not yet fled from his shows. Maybe we should call them the Coalition of the Thrilling. It's exciting to feel part of a holy crusade in which you can't possibly be hurt but your target is destined for annihilation. The Nazis who carried the books to the Berlin book-burning didn't complain about the heavy schlepping, the absurd speeches, or the fact that Ingeborg was waiting at the beer hall. They were thrilled. Pastor Martin Niemoller of Germany is famously quoted as having said, "When the Nazis came for the Communists, I did nothing, because I was not a Communist. When they came for the Social Democrats, I did nothing, because I wasn't a Social Democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did nothing because I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I did nothing because I was not a Jew. "And when they came for me, there was no one left to protest." Am I calling the Imus-annihilators Nazis? That's not necessary. A Nazi mob, a Communist mob, an Islamo-Fascist mob, a last-century lynch mob in the American south, and a 'get Imus' mob - they've all got the same DNA. The labor leader Eugene V. Debs was once carried on the shoulders of a pro-Debs mob when he was released from jail. That night he wrote an essay about how terrifying a mob is, even when it's on your side! I've never been a "slippery-sloper," one who says, "Beware! If you close down a Moslem charity today whose money goes to Hamas they'll close down an ex-offender mentoring program tomorrow and a drug rehab clinic by the weekend and your uncle's synagogue by Wednesday after next." Let's watch. If this newly empowered mob that opens fire against the utterance of "nappy-headed hos" today next takes aim at those who support democracy in Iraq and skeptics of global warming after that and supporters of Israel after that and any conservative viewpoint after that, then you can sign me up in the National Association of Slippery-Slopers. If, however, it all turns against the rappers and hip-hoppers who denigrate black women as "bitches and hos" and drains that fever swamp and then, like George Washington's Continental Army, quietly disbands after victory, I will apologize to them. I should apologize immediately to those in mid-mob who don't feel they're unleashing mob rule at all; just non-violently protesting a powerful white man leveling a powerful insult upon black women. I understand that. Sharks don't think they're worth making movies about. They're just having lunch. Finally, by far the most disgusting part of this disgusting injustice has been the ill-disguised delight of members of the media at Imus's downfall. Some of them were awful. They were like sadistic children slowly pulling the wings off a fly caught in candle wax. President Franklin Roosevelt gave us the word on this. In mid-1940 when the German army had destroyed the French army in the north, Italy's Mussolini, the Sawdust Caesar himself, suddenly invaded France in the south through the French Riviera. At whicht point Roosevelt intoned, "It does not take a very brave dog to bark at the bones of a lion." © NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved.
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